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i bulked for about 2 months then i've stopped for a month. it's summer, i wanna get them abs. help??

Welcome to the forum.

Your question is:

" Can you cut and gain muscle at the same time? "

It can be extremely hard to achieve significant muscle hypertrophy (gain) and fatloss at the same time.
Reason is:

1. Building muscle will require a surplus of calories in the diet to support new synthesis of muscle tissue.
2. Fatloss will require a deficit of calories in the diet to allow for fatloss.

See how both cannot be done at the same time?

I'm not saying it is impossible to build muscle/cut fat at the same time, but it is very hard and unlikely, especially as experience is gained.

Those who are new to training often can achieve this as the body is not adapted/used to weight-training, but as experience is gained this chance can diminish.

You would be far better served choosing 1 goal and sticking with it consistently.
Aiming for both goals at the same time will most likely end in you moving not far either way.

Be sure to keep in mind that rarely, if ever, will you be able to gain significant amounts of muscle and lose significant amounts of fat at the same time. You’ll need to decide which one is best for you at this time and proceed accordingly

I firmly believe that both can be achieved at the same time, just at a much slower rate. I think it works best with beginners and people with high bf%
To keep it managable it may pay to think like the above poster said and pick one goal at a time. Other goals such as strength(to an extent), speed, fitness, health etc can be managed in conjunction with either a cutting diet or bulking diet when managed correctly so please don't think that there is only way to influence the body at a time.

I firmly believe that both can be achieved at the same time, just at a much slower rate. I think it works best with beginners and people with high bf%
To keep it managable it may pay to think like the above poster said and pick one goal at a time. Other goals such as strength(to an extent), speed, fitness, health etc can be managed in conjunction with either a cutting diet or bulking diet when managed correctly so please don't think that there is only way to influence the body at a time.

I agree, I've been experimenting with it via circuits etc, as I'm not too worried about increasing my lean mass drastically. Its definitely not as fast as picking one goal, and its probs the slowest way to pack on muscle and it may have a ceiling effect.

It can be extremely hard to achieve significant muscle hypertrophy (gain) and fatloss at the same time.
Reason is:

1. Building muscle will require a surplus of calories in the diet to support new synthesis of muscle tissue.
2. Fatloss will require a deficit of calories in the diet to allow for fatloss.

See how both cannot be done at the same time?

I'm not saying it is impossible to build muscle/cut fat at the same time, but it is very hard and unlikely, especially as experience is gained.

Those who are new to training often can achieve this as the body is not adapted/used to weight-training, but as experience is gained this chance can diminish.

You would be far better served choosing 1 goal and sticking with it consistently.
Aiming for both goals at the same time will most likely end in you moving not far either way.

Be sure to keep in mind that rarely, if ever, will you be able to gain significant amounts of muscle and lose significant amounts of fat at the same time. Youll need to decide which one is best for you at this time and proceed accordingly

Hope that answers your question.

Originally Posted by Mammoth

I firmly believe that both can be achieved at the same time, just at a much slower rate. I think it works best with beginners and people with high bf%
To keep it managable it may pay to think like the above poster said and pick one goal at a time. Other goals such as strength(to an extent), speed, fitness, health etc can be managed in conjunction with either a cutting diet or bulking diet when managed correctly so please don't think that there is only way to influence the body at a time.

Originally Posted by 0606196t

I agree, I've been experimenting with it via circuits etc, as I'm not too worried about increasing my lean mass drastically. Its definitely not as fast as picking one goal, and its probs the slowest way to pack on muscle and it may have a ceiling effect.

well the way i was going to go about doing this was accordingly:
every other week will be high weight low rep and low weight high rep. run constantly, roughly an hour after each day of working out. and eating pretty much everything in my sight minus sugars.

eating everything in sight will not achieve fat loss. You need to find your BMR first (google bmr calculator, about.com has a good one and so does M&S) and you can subtract 500-700 cals from it.
You seem to be more interested in showing off abs and to be honest if you lose a lot of bodyfat there will be abs there though they will not be superbly ripped but still will be there. Don't do an hour of workout every day. You cannot work out every day and get good results in terms of building muscle. If you were in the military trying to build muscular endurance that's a different story, but I don't think that's what you're doing. Workout monday wednesday friday in terms of resistance training, and do cardio daily. HIIT and/or LIT. I do HIIT and LIT daily but at different times as well as am working out and I am building muscle though I do not think I will be able to get THAT big as people have mentioned since I am cutting also. Really what you will see is "noob gains" or "beginner gains" like larger arm muscles and being able to contract your abs.

eating everything in sight will not achieve fat loss. You need to find your BMR first (google bmr calculator, about.com has a good one and so does M&S) and you can subtract 500-700 cals from it.
You seem to be more interested in showing off abs and to be honest if you lose a lot of bodyfat there will be abs there though they will not be superbly ripped but still will be there. Don't do an hour of workout every day. You cannot work out every day and get good results in terms of building muscle. If you were in the military trying to build muscular endurance that's a different story, but I don't think that's what you're doing. Workout monday wednesday friday in terms of resistance training, and do cardio daily. HIIT and/or LIT. I do HIIT and LIT daily but at different times as well as am working out and I am building muscle though I do not think I will be able to get THAT big as people have mentioned since I am cutting also. Really what you will see is "noob gains" or "beginner gains" like larger arm muscles and being able to contract your abs.

well the way i was going to go about doing this was accordingly:
every other week will be high weight low rep and low weight high rep. run constantly, roughly an hour after each day of working out. and eating pretty much everything in my sight minus sugars.

High reps and low reps dont make a routine fat loss or not.... You should always be lifting as heavy as you can, depending on your body type, preference and training level, your rep range should be around 5 (my favorite), or 8-12, or 8, or 10. Your routine should focus on squats, bench, rows, deadlift and overhead press, each time you do them, you should be adding weight or reps. If you dont add weights or reps each session, something is not right.

You can do both at the same time, your body is constantly burning fat and regenerating muscle at the same time.

You have given any details about yourself, but its probably safe to assume if you eat properly and enough food, you will get more muscle. More muscles means you burn more energy. You get stronger which means you burn more energy. You can do cardio 3 times a week, it can be whatever you want, running, HIT, pushing a prowler, ect. The best form of cardio is something you enjoy.

This wont be the case however if you want to get a 6 pack that is visible, if you chose to go down that path, you cant just cut down and get a 6 pack, it wont work, you will just look like a crack addict.

If you want to get a good 6 pack, you will need to bulk up to a good 200lbs or so, then cut down a bit. Depending on your body, you will still be relatively lean, but you will be big.

Also you may not be able to maintain a 6 pack, those models and bodybuilders with those 6 packs only look like that a few weeks a year. Some guys you will see do have a 6 pack all year round, this is partly from genetics and largely from knowing their body and have large amounts of lean muscle mass.

So you should really focus on bulking up a lot I think, but that depends. What do you weigh?

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

"When in doubt, just get really, really strong. It tends to cure most problems in training  and life." - Wendler

I've been going three months eating exactly what I should (2100cals) split over six meals and I only do HIT in the morning and a three day split in the evening and I've gained nice muscle mass as well as lost fat. Anyone who says it can't be done is wrong, period. It's common sense, if you work out hard you'll burn more cals, once your body runs out of your food it will go to fat. Yes it can attack muscle but only after extreme effort is exerted and it's been at the fat for a while. Eat right and work out and you'll see what you want start to happen.

"You will not be impatient; the grind is where character is made. Focus on what you have to do TODAY to make tomorrow better. This is a life long project"
Jim Wendler.

You will be very unlikey(by very unlikey i mean it wont happen) to build any meaningful muscle if your try to cut for a 6-pac yes if your a beginner you can do both , once you cut alot your body begins to think your starving and is basic survival to try to keep fat over muscle, it uses less energy and provides more, so at this point the only thing you can do is try to keep what muscle you have and no matter how hard you try when you get around sub 10% BF your gonna lose at least a couple of pounds of FFM. Alos if your not like spart said around 200 lbs you will have to get very very low BF% 2 have a viable 6-pac which means making you body feel ever closer to starving and losing even more muscle.

To jay no offense at all but this might be possible at you size and training level but once you get a low BF% it wont be. When you lean your body shifts from eating fat over muscle to muscle over fat , granted you can fight this but its very difficult and you will no longer gain ffm only keep it.

My post is a little messy so if you cant get much out of it ill give you even better advice listen to spartigus.

Matt brings up a good point. Larger guys like myself can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.Though this is far from getting into the science of it and may sound more like a childrens book, when you have a significant amount of body fat (for this example I'm saying 20+%) you body isn't all that attached to it. It will be willing to burn some of the excess for energy while increasing muscle mass.

If you get anywhere near ab showing level, you body isn't going to be too thrilled about losing more of its only way to store energy for times of trouble. Evolutionarily, wanted to walk around with a six pack isnt a great idea as any sort of interruption in the food supply could spell the end for people with no extra energy stores pretty quickly.

You can overcome this by keeping your body well-fed, but at some point, it will start to burn some muscle as energy too. Its pretty lame, but its what bodies do. The cool part is if you eat just right and lift correctly, you can minimize muscle loss and maximize fat loss and end up looking pretty good. If it was easy, everyone would be able to do it.

If you want to get abbs you WILL need to get big first, you cant really get good abbs and a ripped body if you are like 6" and 165lbs with like 15%bf. You will want to be like 6" 200lbs at least with like 14%bf to get good abbs.

If want to get good abbs you need to bulk up a lot (gain lots of muscle), then diet down. If you dont it just plain wont work.

But when you do cut down, you wont gain much muscle when you start going to the low %. You also may not be able to maintain it for long.

My opinion, bulk up, dont worry about your abbs. You will get relatively lean, but big and strong as hell. You wont have a 6 pack, but no one will care because your hench and strong as hell.

This image

is better than this one

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

"When in doubt, just get really, really strong. It tends to cure most problems in training  and life." - Wendler

If you want to get abbs you WILL need to get big first, you cant really get good abbs and a ripped body if you are like 6" and 165lbs with like 15%bf. You will want to be like 6" 200lbs at least with like 14%bf to get good abbs.

If want to get good abbs you need to bulk up a lot (gain lots of muscle), then diet down. If you dont it just plain wont work.

But when you do cut down, you wont gain much muscle when you start going to the low %. You also may not be able to maintain it for long.

My opinion, bulk up, dont worry about your abbs. You will get relatively lean, but big and strong as hell. You wont have a 6 pack, but no one will care because your hench and strong as hell.